You won't be disappointed!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Figures in a Landscape" was a major studio production, but it only got a limited and brief theatrical release stateside, and was pretty much forgotten until it was quietly released on DVD a couple of years ago. It doesn't take long to figure out why the people who held the rights to the movie had such little confidence in the movie finding an audience. I have no idea what the novel that inspired this movie is like, but in this movie, there is very little to make the 110 minute slog particularly compelling. It seems to have been designed to be relatable to any viewer from any country - the country the events of the movie take place in is anonymous, and we learn little about the backgrounds of the two protagonists. But with so little detail, there's little that makes us care about what's going on. As a result, the movie becomes quite boring and just seems to be spinning its wheels again and again. Not everything about the movie is below par, I admit. The photography is good, there are some very scenic locations, and the helicopter stunt work is exciting. But in the end, the movie can be compared to a prettily wrapped-up box that has nothing inside it when you open it.

Two English guys, one young, one older, on the run in a dusky landscape, pursued and intermittently taunted by a VERY low-flying helicopter. (Good stunt pilots!) We don't know where they've escaped from but it must've been recently for their hands are still bound behind their backs and they don't seem to know each other very well.The older man is at first more forceful, giving the impression that it is he who has been the prime mover of their getaway, but we soon see that he is not all that smart and in an early scene he (off-screen) kills an old goatherd, hoping to get a knife, but the body yields nothing. This gives an immediate bad feeling about the fate of these two guys.It is in fact quite annoying to watch how long they stumble through the landscape without seriously trying to sever the cords. After all, they are bound with rope and there are plenty of sharp rocks around.Later, in a village, they manage to enter a house and find a razor. After finally cutting their bonds they steal a rifle and supplies and stuff, all in the presence of a silent, staring woman who seems to be mourning a dead man. But Mac can't resist swiping a loaf of bread from in front of the corpse which sets the woman off screaming and they have to run, as the village comes to noisy life about their ears.Time after time they manage to elude capture, even when surrounded and hunted by hundreds of soldiers! Trying to pick up the men's history from their talk is impossible and we are never told what - if anything - they have done to have caused their captivity.Robert Shaw is fairly convincing as the slightly unhinged Mac. We believe that he could be a criminal of some kind.But Malcolm McDowell, as Ansell, though physically convincing, says his lines as if he's acting in his school play. A scene toward the end where he is supposed to be a bit delirious is particularly cringe-inducing.Now, I know many consider McDowell to be a talented actor who made wrong choices and ended up in dodgy roles, but the fact is that (like Keanu Reeves) he is one of those actors who speak as if they're saying lines that they've memorised (which of course, they have!) Sure, this can work in the right part. Nobody could have played Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange' better than McDowell, but Alex is basically a comic book character, so his rendition fitted perfectly.As others have pointed out, the film doesn't make you feel all that much sympathy for the fugitives, although a bit more for the younger one because, in contrast to the older one, he doesn't seem to want to kill and only does it when forced to.Striving for freedom, the men head for the mountains and here (still pursued by soldiers and helicopter) they reach what we presume to be a border for there is a group of soldiers waiting who do not fire on them as they approach. Ansell is the first to reach them. On their guard, they visibly relax when he throws down his gun. He urges Mac to join him but Mac is curiously reluctant, and hearing the approach of the helicopter goes back down the slope to confront it and make a pointless sort of 'last stand' with his machine gun. Failing to shoot down the chopper, he is himself killed but we don't feel any pity for him.A high camera shot at the very end shows Ansell turning and walking up the hill towards an outpost, shepherded by the soldiers, but we have no idea what fate awaits him. Will he be freed or imprisoned or will he be surrendered to the country from which he has escaped? We don't know. The camera pulls away from the figures and the last view is only landscape.'Figures in a Landscape' is an action film that puts its main characters through a gruelling succession of hardships but breaks the cardinal law of action by failing to make us identify with them and root for them.This is something that was fully understood by Hitchcock, who knew how to get the viewer to root for the main characters. Think of 'The 39 Steps' in which the hero is also on the run through the landscape. You thrill with Hannay in every episode and WANT him to escape and succeed. And then compare with 'Kill Bill' where, for me, it was impossible to identify and sympathise with the main girl because she was herself a cold-blooded killer.If the film is supposed to be 'existentialist' then it fails there too because the characterisation and dialogue is too poor.All in all, worth watching once at least for the great landscape photography and the helicopter stunts.

I quite like this film but I think other reviewers may have missed the point. There's no need for us to know where this is set as it could in fact, be anywhere and it need not even be in this reality.We're looking at the volatile interaction of three main characters two of whom seem to be two sides of the same person - Mac a probable psychopath with utterly twisted morals, the seemingly weak but rational and sympathetic Ansell and the catalytic helicopter.The star of this show is undoubtedly the black helicopter endlessly and seemingly mindlessly track or perhaps even herd the protagonists into an area where they can be captured or killed.The chopper is like a cat, playing with a mouse (life) without actually killing its victim. The gunman on the chopper is seen smirking as the helicopter threatens Ansell on the mountainside. The helicopter could in fact be death or something else like the balancing agent between rational and irrational thoughts.I don't think this film gets the exposure it deserves. It's definitely worth a look.

Inspired by the minimalist theater-driven film-making of the period, Figures in a Landscape is much more interesting than its competition (Tomorrow, Losey's own "The Servant). Why? Because of the helicopter, of course!Robert Shaw, always inspired, is here particularly so, all but frothing at the mouth as he drags his weary carcass over the mountains, from nowhere, to nowhere, until the endless desert itself seems more and more like a stage for their mad performance.An inversion of the often static fare of the period that still displays serious acting chops. Recommended.